


Look at Me

by SkyWrites



Category: Original Work
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-16
Updated: 2016-12-16
Packaged: 2021-03-11 02:14:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 528
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28107618
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SkyWrites/pseuds/SkyWrites
Summary: Living through a traumatic event or losing someone you love gets easier but it never stops hurting.
Kudos: 3





	Look at Me

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this on 2020, not 2016, but ironically didn't want to keep looking at it when I came to my page.

I remember watching movies or reading books and I’d see those sad characters who would get more and more upset as time came closer to a certain date. A date where someone died. I always thought to myself, “This is stupid. This is unrealistic. I wouldn’t let a date get to me.”

But then it did. It got to me. I tried to avoid knowing what the date was when it happened to me, I didn’t want it to be something I remembered. But I saw it once and it’s been etched into my skull ever since. I can’t forget. Even now that it’s the 4th year, even now when I let time slip away from me, I can't forget.

Even my dreams won’t let me forget. As the date gets closer and closer I start having more nightmares again and again and again and more and more and more. I try to forget, but at the same time, I can’t forget, I don’t want to just forget. But I don’t want my only memory to be a bad one, I don’t want my memory to just be of death.

Still, the memories get distorted, the dreams twist and shake. Like a shadow in the dark, they grab me, they clutch at me, desperate. I try to shake it off, I try not to listen. But every day I hear it. It starts out as a whisper.

“Look at me,” it says. I can’t ignore it, but I don’t want to hear it. It’s not right.

And as the date comes closer, it gets louder and louder still. It grabs me harder, its nails dig into my skin, it cuts into my chest. “LOOK AT ME. LOOK AT ME. **LOOK AT ME.** ” It screams. It screams and it screams and it screams and I don’t dare look away. How dare I look away? How dare I try to forget what they meant to me, how dare I try to hide that pain and pretend they didn’t mean the world to me.

So I look. I look at this twisted thing that used to be my loved one. It’s writhing on the floor, screaming, hissing, crying out in pain, but I won’t look away. I can’t do that. It’s not fair to me, it’s not fair to them. This isn’t what they were, this isn’t all I should know of them, but I can’t. I can’t look away. I can’t forget.

It screams and it cries and it slashes into me and I have to take it. I have to. I deserve it. And even if I don’t, I will take it anyway. Maybe even this is a cruelty to you, maybe I am doing you a disservice still even now, but I won’t look away. I will try to remember the good times, I will try not to honor your death but rather your life, I will try my best to do that. But I won’t look away. I run away from everything, I’ve always been afraid of everything, but I won’t look away from you no matter how much it hurts.

It's the least I can do.


End file.
